Celtic assistant John Collins: It will take silly money to make us part with Dutch star Virgil van Dijk

THE Dutch defender is wanted by Southampton, who are lining up a £6million bid, with Newcastle and Sevilla also in the frame.

Collins (left) with Celtic manager Ronny Deila (left) at Glasgow Airport as the squad head to Austria for pre-season training

JOHN COLLINS last night warned it would take silly money to snap up Celtic star Virgil van Dijk.

The Dutch defender is wanted by Southampton, who are lining up a £6million bid, with Newcastle and Sevilla also in the frame.

Celtic are determined to keep hold of the Holland U21 centre-back – who is under contract until 2017 – for at least another season before cashing in.

But Collins insisted there was no chance the club would allow their most-prized asset to exit on the cheap.

Van Dijk put speculation surrounding his future to one side as the Hoops last night landed in Austria for their 12-day training camp ahead of the Champions League first-leg qualifier with KR Reykjavik on July 15.

Collins was adamant the club had not received any bid for van Dijk yet and said: “When you have good players there is always going to be speculation and teams interested in them, so no problem with that at all.

“We would love to keep all the top players but everyone knows if crazy bids come in you never know. But at this moment in time we need them all playing for Celtic.”

Collins is hoping no players are heading out while he admitted it is unlikely new manager Ronny Deila will bring in any new arrivals in time for the Reyjkavik clash.

He said: “It is probably too tight. It will be after those games but we will be looking at players in the training camp as well – videos of potential targets.

“For now the main concentration is working with this group of players towards that first game.”

Deila is determined to take his time assessing the squad in Austria, with games lined up against FK Krasnador on Thursday before clashes with Rapid Vienna, LASK Linz and Dukla Prague next week.

Collins said: “We have four games and we have a big squad so we will get to see all the players. We are building up towards that Champions League qualifier. That’s the important one so we have to build the players up to it slowly.

“We will be training hard every day and we have got the games in between the training. The manager will work on the training pitch to play a certain way, a certain style so hopefully as every game goes by the players will know what we are after.”

Fraser Forster has been given extra time off following England’s World Cup exit while Honduran Emilio Izaguirre will also hook up with the squad next week.